In the mobile world, the two names that are being tossed around more frequently than any others are Apple and Android. The competition between the two world famous operating system has always been heated, even though Android has taken the lead in most categories. However, one thing that Apple has had over Android for quite a while has been a higher number of total ad impressions. For this reason, interest in Apple as a mobile marketing destination has stayed put. However, recent numbers show that Apple may even be losing in this category as well. Android, much like Google itself, is on its way to mobile domination. At least, there is plenty of evidence that points toward this being so.
The final quarter of 2012, which is getting further and further away, showed Android’s takeover of the top spot in mobile ad impressions. According to a report from Thursday by Opera Mediaworks, which is Opera Mobile’s mobile ad tracking department, Android finally surpassed Apple’s performance in driving ad impressions.
To be precise, Android drove about 31 percent of all the mobile ad impressions that Opera tracked in the timespan between October 2012 and December 2012. That is, 31% of the 500 million ad impressions that occurred during that time, across over 12,000 mobile sites and applications. Lagging behind a bit was Apple iOS, driving only about 29% of mobile ad impressions. Listed by Opera are some emerging trends that are believed to have led to Android’s pulling ahead.
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The growth of Android as a platform that is driving the acceleration of ad requests and impression volume
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The emergence of the Russian Federation as a vibrant mobile ad market
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The rapid adoption of more sophisticated devices driving equally rapid innovation in ad units
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The growth in Android impressions was partly driven by the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S III, a device that now accounts for 9% of all Android traffic.
Even though, according to Gigaom, a business, marketing and tech news site, Android has taken this lead, iOS is still in the lead for overall impressions, taking into account iPads and iPod Touches. Also, iOS stays in the lead as far as bringing in ad revenue for mobile advertisers.
The company quotes Opera’s EVP of the consumer mobile division in an interview regarding Google’s new slight lead.
In the U.S. we think that this is considerably helped by the emergence of Samsung and the Galaxy S III. They’re pouring a lot of dollars into the market, and they have favorable pricing with mobile operators, so that entire market has a lot of momentum [toward] adoption of Samsung Android devices.
Even though you saw that for the first time Android phones have a larger volume of impressions, the dollars associated is still considerably in favor of Apple and iOS and iPhones.
Although Google has not completely taken the lead for impressions, as iOS still brings in the bucks, this shows that Android is well on its way to becoming not only the most ubiquitous OS in the hands of consumers, but also the more successful OS for mobile advertising.
